Posts by jai

finally

great to finally get some european figures and interesting to see the statistics.

will be interesting to see if the figure continue to climb now that the hi-def war is drawing to a close - most of the people i know do not really appear that bothered by HD or BD formats and continue to buy dvds

re: Not Live Ones Then

>Does Paris like mice?

in the same way that Richard Gere does? (allegedly)

end of the world is nigh

i've got Cloverfield-like images of Manhatten being laid waste to by a genetically mutated onion

run for the hills!!

re: @ Paul

but presumably you aren't standing in the middle of a field typing on the laptop with one hand whilst holding it in mid-air with the other

so you can rest the battery pack on the desk next to the laptop

OR if you are in the middle of a field, kneel down or put out a blanket or something and rest the battery pack on your knees, the blanket, or even in a pocket, cos not only will you look a nonce holding it up with one hand the whole time, but you'll probably get cramp in your arm also

not trueHD

I dunno - 800quid for a 1080i plasma? i'd rather spend the same money for a 1080p lcd i think. i know plasmas have better blacks, but i've seen a film on a 1080i and then i've watched it on a 1080p and while the differences were subtle, it was possible to notice them. i don't think a plasma really gives that much of a benefit to warrant not getting 1080p

re: Why not PS3?

because if they did include the PS3, then the HD-player percentage would shrink to barely anything, and the small fluctuations in sales figures taht we see in these pie-charts wouldn't be noticeable and therefore there would be nothing to write about

ALSO if they did include the PS3 then the first 5 comments on the article would be xbox-fanbois declaring that it is unfair because it's blatantly obvious that ps3 owners only play games and never watch films

the real threat to our society

is that people like this get paid to come up with rubbish like this

my hard earned tax money is probably funding part of this so-called research

it's an outrage!!!!

(there should be a Mighty Boosh icon to attach to the comments)

apparently not - rumour denied by SCEE

"Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) has issued a statement confirming that the company has no plans to release a 120GB PlayStation 3 console in the United Kingdom."

http://www.psu.com/No-120GB-PS3-planned-for-UK,-says-SCEE--a0002575-p0.php

or possibly you might take this as confirmation that the disk size will be 160gb as they made no mention of that

re: I'm surprised...

but you can't really complain - most of the articles here on the register are often spelt right, because they've at least run a spell checker past them, but it's the wrong word they've used. "to" instead of "too" and the like.

for what it's worth - i like the new film's name. it's better than Die Another Day

title and subtitle

just got to say, this item has the best Title and Subtitle combination ever - you've surpassed yourself this time El Reg

will this one actually work?

i went into the Gizmondo store on Regent St a week or two after it opened and i had a play with the display device

it was useless - the controls were unresponcive, the games looked naff, and it couldn't even lock onto a GPS signal to tell me where i was in London

it just wasn't at all appealing

so if they hope to make a success of it this time (when all the competition has moved ahead so much in the mean time) they'll have to do a lot of work on improving the original

re: Quantum of SoSomething?

quan·tum n.

1. A quantity or amount.

sol·ace n.

1. Comfort in sorrow, misfortune, or distress; consolation.

surely that's a good title as it sums up Bond's need to recovering from the whole falling for and being betrayed by Vesper

knowing Bond, the form of this consolation will be in the form of hot birds, fast cars, cool gadgets and lots of explosions and heaps of dead bad guys

apple's target

wasn't Apple's target figure to have achieved 1% of market share within a year?

and you're saying that in 6 months, they've achieved 0.6%?

so they're ahead of the curve then

@James - re: More and better information needed.

"I'd still like to see information from other markets and does this include the free titles that are often bundled with HD-DVD players?"

Yes, it'd be good to see similar reports from the european countries to see if the trend is similar here in the UK.

however, these figures do not include the free titles that are bundled with the players, because these figures are for hardware sales - only the units of players are being counted here, not the number of films people are buying.

to me, this is much more of a critical indicator of the shift in preference for blu-ray - the number of disc sales will fluctuate as new titles are released on one format and not the other, but if people have effectively stopped buying hd-dvd players, that suggests the public have decided that blu-ray is winning format.

very cool

it's a funky idea - and images of Neil Stephenson's Diamond Age abound, but i'm still unconvinced that there's much of a market for e-paper devices yet. are the Kindle and eBook very popular? i'd have thought people would rather read news websites on their phones rather than pay to download an electronic format of a newspaper - and i'd rather read an actual book than one on an electronic screen

but we shall see - as Brian above says, it's a positive move forward and it'll be interesting to see what tech becomes available in 5 years based on this

legalise it

surely if they legalised software piracy, that would generate far more jobs and taxes

you could then set up YTS courses to teach people the fine art of bit-torrenting and hacking serial keys

that's no moon......

surely everyone agrees that "hokey religions and ancient wepaons are no match for a good blaster at your side"

am similarly disapointed that the M134 General Electric Minigun as Blane uses in Predator wasn't in the top 10. not enough people read Robert Rankin books obvious to realise the true potential of such a weapon

@Chris Morrison

re: You are kidding me?

no, i don't think he did say it. that quote appears to be taken from the article by Jim Goldman, but in the article it is not as a quote but in Goldman's words

re: Comparing adverts and films ?

but the advertising for violent blockbuster films are no different than they were for this game. and the game footage isn't cutesy Mario-esque video game that's designed to appeal to young kids - it's quite realistic so it looks like a film too. either you have to censor ALL advertising, regardless of the media, or you have the faith to let responcible parents like yourself choose what their younglings are exposed to

and that is the problem - the fact is most parents aren't suitable for the job

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=4081&edition=1

so therefore we should really consider requiring a license people to breed

re: the real news

the SDK has always been slated for a February release since it was announced - no one was really expecting it to be released yesterday - although perhaps it would have been nice to see a preview

re: since when

Apple have one model of phone, and during the first quarter of sales they are 2nd to RIM (who have various models) and way ahead of nokia (who have loads too).

if that isn't selling well, then no one is

re: what a stupid comparison

there seem to be a lot of these pointless articles on the register today, just because it was macworld yesterday.

i think Dave is right - El Reg is just trawling for hits regardless of actually news content

but for what it is worth - i'll be choosing the Air over the EEE because at least the screen is big enough to play WoW on. sure, it's not going to run Crysis very well, but can anything yet? but a 7" screen is too small - there are portable dvd players with bigger screens than that

re: My wife just made a good point...

the difference between the US and UK prices works out to be just 300 quid. cheapest flight the New York that i can find at the moment is 260quid so you're gonna have to time your flight to conincide with a favourable currency rates, and also so that you won't have to stay over in a hotel anywhere

calirification

should point out that the 19% marketshare doesn't place them 2nd to RIM - it's places them in 2nd place amoungst those behind RIM - Nokia (and their multiple handsets) still have 1.7% more than Apple (with their one)

big green lizard vs the mechanoid farmers

"It's going to take more than a few hastily reprogrammed robot butlers to deal with them."

come back Godzilla, all is forgiven......

wait for MW

i suspect Apple are just keeping everyone schtumm because they want to make an announcement at MWSF. they'd rather get the press than let CW or O2 get it

re: Hmmm...

apparently the guts of the patent state that the handheld controller would have a unique ID code and that it uses this for all transmissions to the console. So the method of connection and syncing (bluetooth) is not relevant. this would apply to wired controllers as well if they performed in this fashion. It is the fact that each controller has a unique identifier and that is what is used to distinguish the data being sent from data from other controllers.

surely Sony can claim 'prior-art' and that the technology already existed though, because Nintendo released the Wii before the PS3, no?

re: backwards compatibility

i'm not sure the backwards compaitbility is really that necessary

if you have a large collection of ps2 games and you really need to play them that desperately, then you'll already have a ps2 and so you just need to plug that into your telly alongside your ps3

there is now a large section of ps3 games available and out of that there's at least a dozen games that are worth playing and good fun - the old argument that you need your old ps2 games because of the lack of next-gen choice no longer applies

the only ps2 games that i would really want to be able to play on ps3 (with it's upscaling to make them look nicer) are Shadow of the Colossus, the GTA series and Tomb Raider Anniversary. but since the ps3 came out, i've probably only spent 3 or 4 hours playing those, the rest has all been on ps3 games. and to be honest, i can wait for GTA4 and the new ps3 game from Team Ico becaude i'm busy playing the other ps3 games

so while it would seem to be annoying not to be able to play your old games, i really don't think it'd be necessary. and if you're really that desperate, just use your ps2!!

@Tim Lennon

"However, like a lot of people"

i'm not sure you're views are like a lot of people any more. you're the first one to post here that isn't for these plans for new reactors.

"but they do believe that we can do better than just accepting that there's nothing anyone can do except build more nuclear capacity"

there is - we can build wind farm.... except the environmentalists object to them because they spoil the views

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/3548100.stm

and we can build hydro barriers..... except the environmentalists object to those as well because there's a chance they'll affect the indiginous spieces of the area

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/01/green_plans_tidal/

you can't have your cake and eat it too. either we have lots and lots of renewable energy sites (and we'll need an awful lot of them) or we need some nuclear reactors. ideally we need a mix of both.

the alternative was shown well enough in the BBC half-drama-half-documentry If....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/if/4989146.stm

blackouts - chaos - riots - recession - suffering - death

Re: who gives a flying one?

i'm not sure why everyone says solid state will superceed bluray (or hd dvd even)

i can understand it from a point of view of portable read/write storage. no one wants a camcorder that burns to a disc.

but are you saying that you'll be going to Blockbuster and renting a memory stick in the next year or two?

or that HMV will be selling movies on roms?

cycle 24?

why's it called cycle 24?

presumably this has been happening forever, every 11 years?

or have we only been paying attention for the last 253 years?

or is it just sponsorship by the Fox network for Jack Bauer's next caper where the sun itself treatens american freedom by dropping planes out of skies and frying satellites and mobile phones and potentially millions of people are going to die unless he can put a stop to it

@Long way to go yet

also - the 360 with HD-DVD argument doesn't cut it

the machine has been out so long now, that all of the people who are likely to buy it in order to play hd-dvd will have already bought it and got the add-on

all of those who have the 1st gen or the elite version already, are not suddenly going to go out and buy a new one if MS include a hd-dvd player. so it isn't going to suddenly create a spike in the hd-dvd userbase.

@ Lol Whibley

strangely enough i was thinking of Snow Crash too

>Still, i wonder how they plan to incorporate the hardware that doea the testing..

you can picture the scene as this is rolled out can't you:

"Monitoring my acitivty? Well you can take your monitoring probes and you can shove them...."

"Actually sir, that's exactly what we were going to do. Bend over please"

copyright?

surely the MRIAA or the pron equivalent should now be looking to sue Wallmart also for distributing copyrighted material freely?

and there were songs on there too? so the RIAA can get in on the act too, no?

brilliant idea

i think this is a great idea - a genuingly smart way to promote the message

as they say, it's not overly obtrusive, and as well as delivering an important message, it also increases the realism of the game. too often the billboards in these racing games are so similar and artificial - but here will be ones that look as much like they are real billboards along the streets outside.

the only slight problem is that most people playing these games will be at home, with no need to drive.

and who drinks alcohol while playing computer racing games anyway? it slows your reaction time so much you'll never get a decent lap time

you know you're getting old

when you can't play the games the kids play these days without making a fool of yourself and then ranting about it afterwards

put a zimmer frame on your xmas list for next year you old foggey!!

who's at fault here?

if games shops could be relied upon not to sell 18+ games to kids AND parents were responcible enough not to by such games for their 10 year old kids, then we wouldn't have to worry about any teenagers going round caving in their mates heads with claw-hammers and the rest of us could play the games we want

sod it - i'm gonna order the game from the States instead, i'm bored of waiting

tomtom too

on the news this morning they said it would also include making adjustments to your gps navigator as well - haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else though

and if they dont?

what happens if Sky don't comply? are there restrictions or fines or something that will be levied against them? will that cost more than the 200m loss, considering they'll probably just put up their prices to recoup the loss?

cool

i like leaving the folding@home app whenever i'm not playing the ps3 - so the machine is running nearly 24/7 - but it is a bit annoying that i have to stop f@h to play music

this is the perfect solution - now i can leave the ps3 playing music loudly to annoying the neighbours while i'm on holiday AND i'm also helping withteh research to save mankind :)

@highlander - good point about giving the games developers a push in the direction of allowing us to use our own soundtracks. possibly it is only now available because of the recent firmware update?

red dwarf

anyone else worried by the 'coincidence' that we not only get the Talkie the Toaster story today, but all this one which is blatantly Lister pulling off the most flukey of all fluke shots (""They used to call me Cinzano Bianco Lister - once you got me on a pool table, you couldn't get me off!")

apology

well according the news last night, the minister responcible, Ms Kelly, has apologised

so that's alright then

that makes it all so much better

before i was really worried about my personal details being somewhere in the states but i feel so much more reassured and relieved now that she's aplogised and made it all better

i can sleep soundly in my bed tonight knowing that Ms Kelly feels sorry about it all

if aliens are of much superior intelligence....

it's agreed that any alien species capable of recieving our signal and either responding or coming to visit are more intelligent and technologically advanced that we are

so the question is, if it is such a good idea to advertise our presence here, they would the aliens not have done that previously? and so we would have already found them with the SETI project previously?

since SETI didn't find anything, there are 2 conclusions

1) aliens don't exist

2) aliens do exist and know far better than to turn up the cosmic sub-woofer, switch on the intergallatic strobe lights and advertise that there's a party going on here and anyone's welcome to gate-crash

humanity was always going to be wiped out by it's own stupidity, but i didn't think it'd happen so soon